Daily Archives: May 6, 2018

We had quite an animal-filled week!!! Our chicks hatched!!! The kids have loved watching them, holding them, and learning more about them. Mrs. VanKoevering’s class hatched butterflies in her classroom. We were able to have the butterflies come to our room for a short visit on Friday before they set them free. In STEAM, the kids have been studying animal adaptations and environments where animals live. We are going to have so much fun seeing so many of the animals they’ve been learning about at the zoo!

We’ve also been studying economics during our social studies time. This week we discussed wants, needs, producers, and consumers. We even turned our classroom into a factory and made products out of paper to share with our class. Be sure to check out our photo stream for pictures of all the fun!!!

May 8 – Library Day

May 10 – Jet’s Pizza Night

May 11 – Take Home Books Due

Please return all take home books to school by May 11. We will no longer be sending books home each night. Thank you so much for your support with this nightly practice!!! Our first graders have made AMAZING progress as readers this year.

May 11 – Early Release Day

Students are dismissed from school at 12:15. Sack lunches can be ordered through Food Service and will be sent home with your child. Please make sure your child knows if he or she needs to order a sack lunch. Feel free to send me an e-mail to let me know if a sack lunch is needed.

** This week we are switching our specials time with the 4th graders on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. They will be taking the M-STEP test during the morning on these days.**

Reading:

We learned that as we read fiction books we need to study the main character. When we do, we can figure out what he likes, dislikes and how he acts. In our book, Mr. Putter Drops the Ball, we learned that Mr. Putter really likes to nap and he’s worried he might be too old to play baseball!

We should pay attention to all the other characters too! Each character is so different. Understanding all the characters helps us to make better predictions about the story. In our book, we also met Mrs. Teaberry, who is brave and confident. She is sure that Mr. Putter is not too old to play ball.

Later in the week, we remembered how important it is to go back and reread. When we reread, we usually notice something new about our characters that we may have missed during our first read.

Finally, we talked about noticing our character’s feelings and when those feelings change. If our character’s feelings change, we can “take action” and change the sound of our voice. Our first graders are becoming such expressive readers!!!

Writing:

In writing this week, we spent the whole week learning different ways to add details in our writing. We learned that good writers add movement and dialogue to their to stories so that the stories come to life. Another way we can add details is to make sure we tell the small steps. This helps our reader visualize exactly what is going on in our stories.

Finally, we focused on adding feelings in our writing. We can do this by telling how our character is feeling but it makes it even more real when we show how our character is feeling by using a Show, Not Tell. Instead of saying “She was so happy”, we could say, “She was grinning from ear to ear”. Instead of “He was embarrassed”, we could write “His face turned red”. This gives the reader a much better picture in their mind as they read our stories.

Math:

This week, our mathematicians reviewed the two different kinds of clocks that we use in everyday life that are called an “analog” clock or a “digital” clock. We discussed that the shorter hand always points to the hours and the longer hand always points the minutes.

We spent lots of time reviewing and practicing drawing the time on an analog clock and on a digital clock! The hardest part for the kids is to remember that when it is a half hour, the hour hand is half way past that hour (they often read it as the next hour ahead instead of the hour it is half past).